


Don't Lose The Score

by sniperct



Series: Overwatch [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2605751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sniperct/pseuds/sniperct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One two three four, don't lose the score.  Tracer likes keeping track of how many times she can get an expression from Widowmaker. But one time she pushes the lines to see how big of a reaction she can get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't Lose The Score

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from an Anon and combined with one @okheshivar on tumblr supplied!

You know the type. Brooding and mysterious and dark. And cold, so cold she gives me the shivers just standing behind her. The fun part is when I get a reaction out of her. Sometimes it’s really subtle. First time she twitched her eye I about fell over. After that, well, I started keeping count. She’s always so _business_ like when she’s trying to kill me. Where’s the fun in that? So I got her the once, and really, I want to get her again.

We always end up fighting over something stupid again. We’re just trying to deliver a package, and Talon sends Widowmaker and a couple others to intercept. She nearly gets me too, but I’m gone and then back again and the fight is on! Winston plays patty-cake with Reaper and I pop in next to the woman. “Nice weather up ‘ere, luv.”

She actually has this split second of surprise on her face when I lean on her shoulder. Oh she wasn’t expecting that now was she? I salute her with two fingers before backflipping out of her sniper’s nest. She sends a hail of bullets after me but _honestly_ her heart doesn’t seem to be in it. Package got away safely so I wink in her direction. I just _know_ she has me in her crosshairs. She doesn’t shoot me, so that makes number three.

Number four comes when I drop in for a visit and a chat at her personal penthouse. She about falls out of the bed when she opens her eyes and sees me grinning at her. Somehow she turns it into this graceful roll and it’s rather like a cat the way she pretends she hadn’t nearly gotten tangled up in her comforter. It’s bland, she could use some more colour in her room. I gesture around with both of my hands. “You’ve _got_ t’tell me who you’re interior decorator is.”

And she’s standing there completely starkers and I can’t tell if she’s angry or embarrassed, but there’s heat in her eyes and that’s the biggest bloody reaction I’ve gotten out of her yet. 

We move at the same time, and I manage to get to her weapon first, kicking it out of the way. She grabs me by the leg and flips me arse over head. I land hard and roll out of the way of her foot. I kick my feet out as I flip up. She’s making another run for her weapon, but she hasn’t hit the alarm. I blink out her window before she even reaches the gun. I fall several stories before I catch a ledge, and then leap and blink my way up.

What I’m not expecting is for her to _follow_ me. I’m halfway up when her fist connects with my face. I spin, then recall until I’m behind her. She whirls just as I catch up to her and her rifle is pointed right between my eyes. “I see you ‘ad time to get yer knickers on.”

“You’re only alive because I’m letting you live,” She responds. They haven’t _completely_ beat the French out of her, and there’s the faintest trace of it in her accent. 

“And why’s that, luv?” I press my finger against the barrel of her gun and nudge it to the side as I take a step closer. Live dangerously because you only live once, I say.

She swivels the gun back towards me but it’s too late, I’m inside her dead zone, and I gaze into her gorgeous amber eyes. They narrow, but I’m too fast. Her cheek is cold against my lips. When I pull back, her mouth is hanging open like she just can’t _process_ what just happened. 

I see it in her eyes. Confusion, recognition, regret. A gamut of feeling across her face before the mask clamps back into place. Can she even remember what it’s like to feel something?

Widowmaker steps backwards, her gun snapping back towards me as she does so. I’m moving as she pulls the trigger, dodging to the side and handspringing off the ground, before kicking off the wall and blinking behind her. 

We collide as she compensates and then we’re both falling. I grab her arm with one hand as I latch onto a pole. We dangle. She looks down, then back up at me. I can tell she’s trying to decide if I’m going to drop her. If our positions were reversed, I think she would have dropped me. 

“I ‘ave to say I admire the view. An’ the vista below you is pretty nice too. But we can’t hang out all night, I’ve still got to tuck Winston in. Now get ready, we’re gonna ‘eave ‘o.”

There’s no emotion on her face, but her grip tightens on my arm. I start to swing her back and forth, and then with a tremendous effort swing us both up and onto a balcony. I land hard on my back and she collapses on top of me. 

I don’t get to touch people often. The downside of my powers is I’m a lot like a ghost and I need my harness to not end up unhinged from time. A lot of people find that a bit of a turn off.

Widowmaker pushes herself up and looks down at me. Her hair frames both our faces, hiding us from the world like a veil. She studies my face, but I can’t take my eyes off of her lips. It’s a huge relief when she rolls off of me and I can breathe again. Shit. 

“You’re only alive because I’m letting you live.”

“Yer soundin’ like a broken record. Do you need a reboot?” I sit up and reach over, brushing some hair away from her face. “A refresher on yer programmin’?”

She _stares_ at me. There’s that heat in her eyes again, and it takes longer for it to pass than it did last time. So I kiss her again, this time on the lips. They’re as cold as the rest of her. She shoves me away and I spring to my feet.

She points at me. Her voice sounds like ice. “Come back here again and I’ll kill you.”

But she doesn’t want to kill me now. I’ll take it. “So it’s a date then. Ta!”


	2. Grinding Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Widowmaker fight her conditioning. Her and Tracer trade off in who gains the upper hand.

It feels like there’s glass grinding inside my head. Images and patterns flicker on my eyelids. A feeling that I think is a heart-attack. A memory of a tender touch. Blood on my hands. But then it’s gone, only a tenuous thread that I can’t grasp. But at least there’s again the peace of a dull ache I long ago learned to ignore. _Cold as ice, cold as the corpse of my husband._ The fog.

Why did I let Tracer go? I could have killed her. I should have several times over. She broke in without somehow triggering security and had the audacity to sit on my bed until I woke up. I feel as though I should consider that creepier than I do.

She’s playing some kind of game. I don’t care what it is, I want to see her head splattered across the ground. _That’s aggression. We don’t like aggression. Aggression leads to mistakes._. One shot. One kill. That’s all it takes and her threat is gone. _Why is she a threat?_

Her lips, warm. Her smile, so cocky, so irritating and this look in her eyes like she somehow cares. Cares for this person who wants to see her dead. Is she _stupid_? Grinding glass and flickering patterns and what was it like to be _warm?_. Voices talking, voices demanding and ordering. Grinding glass and broken nerve endings and everything is cold, cold like sinking into the waters of the Atlantic in winter. Everything returns to the fog and I’m the Widowmaker again.

I drop my targets like flies. A senator with too soft a heart. An oil baron holding out. In my crosshairs is a woman. Gentle smile but firm eyes, a mind rumored to hold the keys to a dozen scientific breakthroughs. Next to her is a man, her brother. The voice that shares her ideas and makes them understandable for the public. _Ideas are dangerous._

Why are they dangerous? My head hurts suddenly. _Grinding glass_. Ideas are dangerous because those who have ideas can’t be controlled. My vision clears from the pain and there’s Tracer, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips and her head cocked back and that irritating smile. I can’t breathe through the fog, and I can’t hear for the grinding in my head. 

It’s a dance we do. I strike, she dodges, I catch her when she recalls and this time I pin her down under my knee, a knife at her pretty throat. “I told you I would kill you if I saw you again.”

“So why am I still alive, _Amélie_?”

The blade starts to bite into her skin, drawing blood. My hand shakes, I can’t stop it, I can’t control it, I just feel that glass grinding in my head. “ _That is not my name!_ ”

_It’s nice to meet you, Amélie. Are you free tonight, Amélie? Will you marry me, Amélie? I love you, Amélie. Good night, Amélie._

I can’t move. I replay it over and _over_ again. The way Gerard twitched as I smothered him with his own pillow. How I didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror afterwards. Gerard twitches and dies. Empty eyes stare back at me in my reflection. Gerard twitches. Empty eyes.

Tracer upends me, pinning me down with her legs on either side of my waist, one hand pinning my wrists above my head. “Come on, luv. You’re makin’ this easy.”

“And you’re making this hard!” The emotion in my voice surprises the both of us. I can’t breathe. Every breath is short and ragged but she doesn’t take her eyes from my face. She leans down, and our foreheads touch.

The grinding in my head gets louder, the fog constricts me until I’m choking on it, and all she has the gall to say is. “Now why would yer say that?”

Her thighs are like a vise. Where does she even get that strength? I ignore her words, her weight, the warmth of her body. I just need to get her off balance and I can escape. I can escape and everything will be cold and distant again. 

“Amélie.”

I shove her wrists back, smash my head into her face and kick her off. I don’t even bother grabbing my gun. Instead I run, and jump. Firing my grapple I use the line to rappel down to the ground, and safety. I run from Tracer and that glass grinds in my head, wears me down, cutting and slicing at ‘Amélie’ until she’s nothing but ribbons. Cage her, torture her, _purge_ her from my mind. I’m _not_ Amélie. She died before Tracer was even old enough to drink.

A knee knocks my breath away. I lash out, spinning and kicking my assailant away. Tracer blinks ahead of me, then she’s behind me, and flipping above me. I match her movements. She’s agile but I’m graceful and we dance around each other and above each other and below each other. Blood streams from the brunette’s nose, and there’s an angry red line on one side of her neck. Her foot snaps my head back. I recover, spitting blood onto the ground and then punching her hard in the throat.

She staggers, choking. I kick her in the chest, slamming her into the wall. The device on her chest cracks and sputters. I kick her there again. And again, then grab her neck and flip her onto her back. Her fingers dig at my hand and she _grins_ through the bloody mess of her face. She flickers. Like she’s here and then she’s not.

Tracer’s voice is raspy. “Are yer angry?”

Yes. No. I don’t feel anger. I don’t feel anything. I don’t… I _don’t_. “ _Yes!_ ”

My fingers tighten on her throat.

It’s hard for her to talk, and I relent, slightly. “Yer angry at me?”

Yes. _No_. No, not at _her_. Like a rubber band snapping, I reel back. I let her go and back peddle until I hit the opposite wall. Tracer sits up. Her flickering is worse now, and sometimes there are two of her and sometimes she’s sitting next to me, but mostly she’s where I left her. My hand lands on one of her guns, and I lift it and point it at her. “No. Not at you.”

I need relief, I need the glass out of my mind. I don’t want to _feel_. I want to be in control again. I liked it when it was cold, I liked it when I knew where I stood and what I stood for. _What did I stand for, who did I stand for, was I ever in control? Or was it always Talon?_

I turn the gun towards my head and pull the trigger.

The voices are back, digging at the edge of my conscious. A bright light shines in my eyes. The voices are louder.

“Widowmaker. You failed.”

My voice sounds foreign to my ears. “There was resistance.”

“Yes. There _was_.”

Hands hold me down. A needle pushes into my arm. The grinding starts all over again.


	3. A Healthy Obsession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercy has noticed that Tracer seems to have a crush. Her suspicions are confirmed when Tracer comes back injured. Mercy PoV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on a prompt from mysral on tumblr and it ended up going in a completely different direction.

You don’t become a doctor without some powers of observation, and Tracer’s behavior lately has been suspect to say the least. She’s come back from several missions bruised and battered. That isn’t too uncommon but it’s like she’s been careless and distracted. I’ve caught her more than once staring into space and smiling. I suspect she’s seeing someone.

Overwatch may be gone, but she’s still my friend, and it’s still my charge to see to her health, whether she likes it or not. I sometimes think we’re crazy to act like heroes when we don’t even have government sanction, but then I have to help where the need arises. I’m a doctor, it’s what I do. Would be nice if she’d give me a break.

And today she’s a mess. Her face is bloodied and her harness is heavily damaged. I barely get a chance to take stock of her injuries before she becomes unhinged from time. The chronal accelerator drops to the ground with a clunking sound. I stare at it, horrified.

It takes Winston three weeks to repair the accelerator. In that time, Tracer reappears twice. I can’t do anything when she’s like this. It’s virtually impossible to touch her. She’s like a ghost, phased between now and some undisclosed point in the past or future. 

“What happened?” I’d asked, standing there helplessly. I’d had my suspicions and a thousand questions to ask her.

She’d given me this little shrug and a sad smile. “I got through to ‘er.” And then Lena was gone, leaving me dumbstruck.

“Through to her? She can’t possibly mean Lacroix, can she? “

“Your guess is as good as mine, but she has spent an inordinate amount of time ‘keeping Widowmaker busy.’” Winston had pushed his glasses up his nose, then returned to working on the accelerator.

“I should have asked her about it _before_ she went off and gotten herself hurt.”

“Would it have stopped her?”

I can’t exactly answer no to that. There’s a time after he fixes the accelerator that I fear Lena is finally lost to us. But then there she is, and quicker than a creature his size should move, Winston has the harness activated and on the woman.

I rush in. “You. Sit. Stay still.”

She laughs. “It’s not that bad, luv! 

Not that bad. Her harness was thrashed, her face bloody, at least two ribs are broken and she has a bullet wound in her arm. I level her a look and get to work. “You said you got through to her. You meant Widowmaker, ja?”

“Amélie.”

I finish up her arm and then turn her head towards me. “Lena, she’s Talon’s, and from the looks of it she nearly killed you.”

“But she didn’t. Angela, I got through to ‘er. Talon might ‘ave their ‘ooks in ‘er but she’s still _there_. She tried to shoot ‘er own bloody ‘ead off but...” She gestures at her arm. “If there’s even a chance that we could get to ‘er, shouldn’t we try? Isn’t that part of what Overwatch was?”

“Overwatch is gone, Lena. And you’ve got a thing for someone who clearly doesn’t want to be reached.”

“What ‘appened to the whole mercy thing?” Lena grabs my shoulder and squeezes. Her facade falls and I’m reminded that I have eight years on her. “Come on, luvvie. _’elp_ me.”

I sigh. “First, we need to patch you up. And then, I guess we’re going to need to build a trap.” I don’t know how. We don’t have near the same resources we did before Overwatch was dissolved.

“Doesn’t Faree’a owe you a favour?” Lena, you conniving little...At the sudden mention of Fareeha, I can feel the heat reaching my face. 

I shove her gently in her good shoulder. “Sit still and shut up.”

She laughs, but lets me finish tending her wounds. “May I say again that she beat you to a pulp?”

“That was Widowmaker.”

“Amélie and Widowmaker are the same person until proven otherwise, müsl.” But her earnest expression is a little infectious. What if we _could_ break Amélie’s conditioning? That would spell wonders for other people that Talon has broken. Again, I sigh. “But we’ll try. I’m just worried. This isn’t exactly a healthy obsession. Do you honeslty have feelings for her?” If it was anyone else she was interested in I’d be more encouraging. Lena is rather adorable with a crush.

She looks affronted. “It’s not a bloody obsession!”

“You’ve spent that past few months in a little daze and don't you think I haven't noticed. And you just nearly got yourself killed because you’re trying to turn a ruthless assassin to the side of sunshine and lollipops. Obsessed.”

She pouts, sticking out her lower lip. “Right, then. A little bit obsessed.”

“You’re twenty-six years old, I think you’re a little past crushes.”

“ _Faree’a._ ” And she says that in the most smug tone I’ve ever heard her use and it’s only worse because I can feel blush on my face again.

“Shut up. I don’t think she’s talking to me anyway.” I press a little too had when I wrap her ribs and she grunts, but she deserves it. Honestly.

“Won’t know if yer don’t call, Angela.”

There’s the sound of an alien gorrilla clearing his throat. “Might I offer a suggestion?”

“Shoot, luv!”

“I think I can build a device to allow us direct access to the Talon neural conditioning. But it may not be possible to fully reduce the procedure that accounts for her slow heartbeat and blue skin. I can build your trap. In the meantime.” He looks at Tracer. “You need to bait it.”


	4. Breaking

My first shot misses, but the second strikes her in the shoulder. She falls, out of sight and I rappel down towards the target. She's dangerous, my handlers tell me. Finish her quickly. _Don't let her talk._

She's not there when I reach her. There's a small puddle of blood, but the target has moved. Something moves behind me and I turn, lifting my gun to end this.

"Hey luv, yer lookin' particularly murderous tonight."

Something in her voice makes me freeze, and in that split second she hits me.

There's that grinding in my head again. Like metal tearing at metal inside a turbine. My finger twitches on an invisible trigger and I want it to stop, I want it to stop. _I want it to stop._ I scream and I scream and I’m _afraid_. "Don't make me remember!" And like an onion they peel me apart.

Tears burn a path down my cheeks, my pulse deafens me. A face. Her face. That _face_ looks down at me and I feel her hand on my arm. 

I don’t know how long I drift. The needles feel different. My skin itches. I jerk awake, firing a gun that’s not actually in my hands. Tracer’s smiling face greets me, her hand on mine to lower it. I’m in a white room. No restraints; it would be a simple matter to escape. Lena must have noticed the direction of my eyes, because she touches my chin. 

“Now now, yer not a prisoner here. How do yer feel?” 

How do I feel? I look her over again. I remember her flicking in and out of time. I remember men’s faces, needles in my skull, scratching digging cutting. Grinding away my name, grinding away my memories. 

Shoving her aside, I leap off the bed. Instruments clatter, tubing rips from my arms. I leap over a guard, covering his head with my hospital gown. Rolling back to my feet, I sprint down the hallway. My reflection stares back at me as I skid to a halt in front of a glass window.

“We had ta shave yer head,” Lena says behind me. There’s something apologetic in her tone as I take in my shaved head, the stitches in my scalp and the incisions in my stomach and chest. Her hand lands on my shoulder, but I barely feel it. 

Salty streaks run down my cheeks and I turn back to her. My voice rattles in my chest. “Why am I crying?”

Her eyes crinkle up as she smiled. Her hand touches my cheek, flutters over my nose. A finger brushes my lips. “Cause yer feeling somethin’ instead a nothing.”

I’m broken, a shattered mirror and shadow of myself. No longer Widowmaker. Too broken to be Amelie. Lena puts a robe around my shoulders, but she doesn’t guide me back to the hospital room. I stare at her back. The reflex to strike like a snake and eliminate Tracer, my last target, is overwhelming.

She glances at me over her shoulder. Wary. Like she could sense the direction my thoughts are going in. It’s smart of her. I shrug one shoulder. “You can turn off the programming, but it is still always there.”

Taking my hand, she strokes my knuckles with her finger. The sensation sends a charge down my spine, and I feel my heart beat. Still slow, still steady, but with a growing warmth I can’t place. Lena looks at my hand curiously, then lifts it to her throat. Our eyes meet, and I squeeze instinctively.

“This what yer want?” She asks. I drop my arm and shake my head.

I don’t know what I want. Trust again. To feel human again. To have hands that are for more than just killing. Lena looks at me, still wary, but something has changed in her eyes. I think I would respect her less if the wariness wasn’t there. I look back at her, helplessly. “Why?” Why this, why me?

“Sometimes yer can’t choose yer feelins. Sometimes they just strike you.” She taps her harness, over her chest. “Like lightin’ to the heart.”

“You’ve lost your mind.” 

Lena smirks, stepping into my personal space. I don’t hate it. I don’t hate the way her hands run up my arms, I don’t hate the way she leans in, standing on her toes or the way her lips feel on mine. 

“I know yer can’t get better just from this, Amelie. It’s not gonna be easy. But we’ll get yer through it an’ yer don’t gotta be alone.”

For the second time in just a few minutes I feel tears on my face. “I’ll hurt you.”

“Probably.”

“You don’t have to take it.”

“An’ I won’t. But I’m not gonna get mad at you for it.”

I close my hand over my chest. “I don’t know how to be Amelie any more.”

She chuckles, and brushes at my cheeks. “Then I’ll help yer find who you are now.”

My eyes drop to her lips. “I want to feel warm again.”

“Amelie.”

Sighing, I close my eyes. “Fine. Kiss me.”

Wrapping her hand around the back of my neck, Lena pulls my head back down.“ _So_ demanding.”


End file.
